


Watches, Wordplay and Wonky Weather

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bad Weather, Blind Character, Blind Dean, Brooklyn, Clumsy Castiel, Conflicted Dean, Flirty Castiel, Fog, Hot Weather, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, Inspired by a Movie, Light Angst, M/M, New York, New York State, Past Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Talking, Teacher Castiel, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Thanks,” he says through a limited supply of breath. He’s got a voice that can rival the unexplored depths of the ocean. “Sorry, I just, uhm… wow, this is embarrassing,” he laughs.</p><p>“What’s embarrassing about falling in front of a blind guy?”</p><p>“Touché.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watches, Wordplay and Wonky Weather

**Author's Note:**

> The style of humor was inspired by Before We Go directed by and starring Chris Evans, who is a talent too good for the grips of Hollywood.
> 
> The setting was based on this, which is (or was) an actual bench that can be seen along the Brooklyn Bridge:
> 
> https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6192/6061850363_27e080e31a_b.jpg

Watches, Wordplay and Wonky Weather

 

Fog surrounds him like a lukewarm bathtub, the sky’s leaky faucet ghosting over naked wrists. His nose hairs give standing ovation to the oddly inebriating smell of car protein as the wind filters through the Celtic arms of the Brooklyn bench. Pedestrians pass with the same greeting, the slapping of their handbags and the _clank_ of their blade handle shoes syncing with the boisterous chatter of hopeful young men.

A smile pries Dean’s lips open. Some things never change.

His attention’s diverted by a light pull on his left sleeve. With his right hand, he takes the misbehaving object—a Batman cufflink with the wings extending in—and aligns it with the skinny of his hand again.

The things he does for love.

He pulls out his cane, testing the ground like water: toe in, toe out. His grip tightens with each tap. He can feel the intensity of people’s gazes, but no scrutiny is more thorough than what he’s conducting on himself.

His test run is cut short by the loud _crash_ of someone in front of him. Before he can jump to help, his cane catches something round and expendable. He bends over, retrieving the item. Judging by the grooves in the band and the circular glass plate, it’s a watch—an expensive one at that. Dean can feel three different tickings beneath the pad of his thumb. “Is this yours?” Dean asks, lending out the watch.

There’s the shuffle of two left feet and the stranger—definitely a man’s hand by the radius, coated with callouses and communicable chalk—grabs his watch. “Thanks,” he says through a limited supply of breath. He’s got a voice that can rival the unexplored depths of the ocean. “Sorry, I just, uhm… wow, this is embarrassing,” he laughs.

“What’s embarrassing about falling in front of a blind guy?”

The man laughs again—not the kind people scrape off their tongue when they want to humor Dean, but the genuine questioning-my-life-choices kind, “Touché.”

“Dean,” he offers, supplying his hand, “Nice watch you got there.”

“Castiel, and thanks,” he says, accepting the gesture, “I got it with my last paycheck thinking it would help keep me on time. But I guess two Fossils don’t make a right.”

Dean smothers a smile with a small laugh, “You going somewhere, Cas?”

“How did you know?”

“Wild guess.”

He has a strong inkling Cas’s cheeks hurt. That’s one of the things Dean hates about being blind: He’s limited to hearing people’s happiness. He’s always been perceptive (at least that’s what his mother said before she became one with their smoking house), but perceiving with his heart can only bring _him_ so much happiness.

“Right… sorry, uhm… do you know when the next train is?” Cas asks.

“Do you always apologize to strangers?”

“Only the handsome, debonair kind.”

Dean hides in the collar of his tux, mumbling, “3:15.”

“Thanks,” Cas chuckles, taking the opposite side of the bench. The _creak_ as he sits down could very well be the age of the bench, but Dean would like to believe Cas is physically abundant.

Dean angles his head to the bench seat, refusing to meet Cas’s eye if he could. "Are you handsome, Cas?" For a moment, the only perceivable sound is the mind-numbing hum of an airplane above them. “I know it’s kind of a straightforward question, I was just—”

"I suppose."

Dean’s frown transforms into a fine purse across his face. "Supposing is for gamblers, you're either handsome or you're not, which is it?"

"Yes," Cas replies, more assured, "I'm handsome."                                                                                  

"How do I know you're not taking advantage of me?"

"Well you could always use those hands for something other than voyeurism."

“Ha-ha.” But after an awkward moment of silence—more or less like the time in third grade when one of his classmates had to pivot him in the right direction during the monotonous recital of the Pledge of Allegiance—Dean turns to Cas. “You’re serious?”

“Why not?” he says, then: “Unless you’re the Zodiac Killer.”

“Definitely not the Zodiac Killer.”

“Okay,” Cas replies, signaling him with a warm hand on Dean’s knee, “have at it.”

Dean raises his eyebrows in question then scoffs facing him, “You know, my teachers weren’t this hands-on back in the day.” He feels Cas’s face stiffen underneath his phantom touch, but he doesn’t move. “You might want to invest in a dry-erase board,” he says.

“I’m reconsidering the Zodiac question.”

“The name’s Dean, not _Ted,_ ” Dean retorts, planting his hands more firmly on Cas’s face. He starts at the base of his chin, which is squared and lightly drawn with a felt tip 3D pen, scraggly but smooth, before journeying to the hollow of his high-set cheekbones. His smile lines are deep.  His pads catch on the bridge of his nose—big, but not jutting. Above that is a folding fan of eyelashes, tickling the skin beneath his fingernails.

“Holy shit,” Dean breathes, fingers slowly falling. “You’re definitely handsomer than him.”

He feels Cas’s face heat up. “Who’s him?”

“ _Matthew_ ,” Dean spits the name like a sailor. “My girlfriend’s husband-to-be.”

“I take it that’s why you’re holding up traffic?”

Dean slips his fingers around his cane again. “It’s just he’s not involved with Ben _at all_ —”

“Ben?”

“My stepson— _ex_ -stepson now, I guess,” Dean scoffs. “The guy just lies around the house watching rich bumfucks like him building homes and ‘corroborating’ with witnesses—who even _says_ that?”

Cas is quiet for a moment. “Rich bumfucks named Matthew, apparently.”

“I got invited to the wedding,” Dean continues, “but I can’t bring myself to go. I don’t want to disrespect Lisa or be selfish, but everything’s just too hard to even try to… _corroborate…_ my support on this.”

“Not even for Ben?”

Dean’s mouth parts too small to catch fruit flies, but wide enough to steal their coveted honey. Before he can fully face Cas, a four-wheeler kicks up some mud coming to a screeching halt a block east.

“That sounds like me,” Cas says, regret spiking his words. “Listen, you’re better than that Matthew guy, okay, but you wouldn’t be half the man you could be if you didn’t show up.”

Dean cranes his head when he feels the back of Cas’s hand on his knee. Smiling, he accepts the gesture, relying on his weight and his cane to pick himself up completely. After a few hours of sitting, walking feels like treading on ice with a pair of dismembered ice skates. But with Cas’s hand guiding him towards his destination, it also feels like flying.

“You know I’m only holding your hand so you don’t lose your watch again,” Dean comments.

Cas shoves him lightly. “What’s the difference when I’m progressively losing time as we speak?”

Dean’s laughter rips through the heaviest New York fog.

**Author's Note:**

> To this day, Dean tells every curious person they meet: “It was love at first sight.”
> 
>  


End file.
